Why read The Book of Records?

Book cover of The Book of Records

Book description

Why did people, who lived so briefly in this universe, contain so much time?

Lina and her ailing father have taken refuge at an enclave called the Sea, a staging post between migrations, with only a few possessions, among them three volumes from The Great Lives of Voyagers encyclopaedia series.

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Book of Records as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Mitchell Thomashow

Author

The Book of Records portrays a surreal climate change future where refugees are living in a transitional community waiting for their next journey. The young woman protagonist (Lina) has access to three books, each portraying an important historical figure who lived in exile—Hannah Arendt, Baruch Spinoza, and Du Fu—covering distinct periods of human upheaval. The novel juxtaposes those stories with the Lina's growing intellectual and emotional development, providing her with the ballast to confront her family's past and her own future. These convergent "records" are evocative of contemporary times and urgently pertinent. The writing is lovely, wonderfully descriptive, and emotionally…

From Mitchell's 3 favorite reads in 2025.